


Forest Fire

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 05:12:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13228779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: PWP set during "The Sunken Tomb" (E44). The roc disruption happens slightly later than in canon, giving Vax and Percy more time to talk... or not, as the case may be.





	Forest Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pavolontra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pavolontra/gifts).



> Vax: My ears feel really hot this morning, I don’t know why that is.  
> Percy: I’ve been breathing on them.
> 
> I've been sitting on this plotbunny since March 2016 thanks to that quote but it didn't want to come out until now. Pavvy-chops, thank you again for your generosity that led to me wanting to Write You A Thing. Characters aren't mine, just borrowing.
> 
> * * *

The trees are Vex’s territory more than they’ve ever been Vax’s. Keyleth’s too; he wonders why she bothers sleeping in her own form or even Minxie form when she could become a bat and hang upside down, she’s so attuned to the wild. It seems that when it comes to the forest, their elven halves win out over their human sides.

His human side misses his bed.

It seems Percy also misses his bed; Vax can smell gun oil and hear the gentle swish of cloth over metal. The willingness to get his hands dirty is one of Vax’s favorite things about Percy; while he can be a snooty stuck-up asshole in so many ways, he’s not afraid to do his own work.  There’s even the occasional muttered curse directed at the freezing night air.

“Freddie.”

“Haven’t we had enough awkward conversation for the night?”

“Just put the gun down and come here.”

Percy grumbles, but packs the gun and cleaning equipment away and moves to join Vax, leaning close against Trinket. Vax pulls him into a close embrace; Percy’s body goes stiff, but he lets Vax do it, and begrudgingly rests his head against Vax’s shoulder.

“It’s too cold to not be wearing proper gloves,” Vax chides him, noticing that the gloves he has on, while knitted of warm wool, are fingerless.

“Can’t feel what I’m doing in proper gloves.” Percy shivers. “Could you pick locks in mittens?”

“Why would mittens have locks in them?”

Percy pokes him in the ribs. “Idiot.”

“We’re going to need a better shelter than this if we’re going to stay many more nights.” Vax squints at the icy surface of the loch between the trees. “Either that or more animals to use for warmth.”

“People _are_ animals,” Percy says. “We just usually have less fur.”

“Are you delirious?”

“No, just sleepy.”

“There’s another half an hour until Kash and Scanlan come on watch.” Vax has been watching the moon. “You have to stay awake. I’m not watching alone.”

“Scared of the owlbears?”

“No, actually; I just don’t like _anything_ that Zahra reported back about the lake. Thick mud, no plants… you don’t have to be a druid to know that’s not quite right, even somewhere as cold as this.”

“But we do _have_ a druid,” Percy points out. “I’m sure Keyleth’s already got ideas about how to make sure it’s safe down there for us to go into—into whatever’s down there.”

“Loch Anus.”

“One should always be careful when entering the anus,” Percy says solemnly.

Both of them pause for a moment, waiting for Scanlan’s innuendo sense to wake him up and insert his own dirty comment into the conversation. When it doesn’t, Vax feels obligated to slip in one of his own.

“You sound quite knowledgeable.”

He can feel Percy’s cocky smirk against the skin of his neck. Percy’s hands aren’t quite so cold as they previously were where they rest against the small of Vax’s back, under his cloak but over his tunic. “All knowledge is worth having.”

“Have you—did someone, you know, with you? Or did you—”

“ _Do_ let me know when you’ve got a fully formed question you want me to answer.”

“You know what I mean. Did you give or take?”

“Less ‘or’ and more ‘and’,” Percy says with a yawn. “Obviously not simultaneously, although I’m given to understand that’s a thing that people do; it’s sometimes called ‘daisy chaining’.”

Vax thinks he’s never going to be able to look at one of Keyleth’s flower crowns quite the same way again.

“What’s it like?” he blurts.

“Are you seriously telling me that you and Gilmore haven’t—”

“No!” Vax can imagine it (and has before, and doubtless will again) though; it makes him wonder if the hot, sweaty, passionate activities of his fantasies are accurate, if Percy can speak of the act so dismissively.

“It’s like any sex. It depends on what effort you put in and what you’re expecting to get out of it.”

Vax thinks Percy’s too young to sound so blasé about sex, and tells him as much.

“I’m sorry.” Percy grins again. “Would you prefer me to be pawing at you like a horny young man in the early years of his sexual maturity?”

“I wasn’t thinking _me_ necessarily—” Vax protests.

“Really? That’s not what _this_ says.” One of Percy’s hands slips below Vax’s belt buckle, palming the hard length of his cock through his leathers. “Or would any warm body do on a cold night like this one?”

Vax wets his lips. “Percy,” he says. “We shouldn’t.”

“Are you afraid of frostbite?”

“Afraid of waking the others,” Vax says.

“In that case, I shall have to keep you quiet.”

Percy’s tongue slips into his mouth at the same time as his hand slips into Vax’s leathers. Vax jerks and whimpers against him; they both hold perfectly still for a moment, but nobody else stirs.

“Mm?” Percy hums, fingers closing around Vax’s cock.

“ _Mmmm_ ,” Vax agrees, and Percy starts stroking him. His fingers aren’t cold anymore; they’re warm and knowing and Vax is thrusting into Percy’s hand before very long, hips moving as little as possible but _moving_ nonetheless, despite the need for secrecy.

It’s that very need for secrecy that brings him faster than expected, the contemplation of what might happen if someone woke and caught them paying far less attention to the surrounding woods than they should be. Oh, Scanlan and Grog wouldn’t care, but his sister would, and Keyleth— _Keyleth_ —

Despite his straying thoughts, hers is not the name on his lips when he comes; Percy swallows his own name in Vax’s moan of release.

Moving his free hand carefully, Percy blots them both clean with a good linen handkerchief, careful and fastidious. Kima murmurs Allura’s name unhappily in her sleep; both men freeze again until her snores resume.

“Do you want—” Vax’s hand quests along Percy’s thigh.  
  
“No. Turn around.”  
  
“Um?”  
  
“Turn around.”  
  
“You’re not—not out here—”

“No,” Percy says patiently, manhandling Vax just enough to get Vax’s back against his chest, the curve of Vax’s ass settled against the hard ridge in his poncy noble trousers. Vax thinks, _how is he not freezing his balls off? This fabric feels too thin_. “Just trust me.”

“Always,” Vax says readily.

Percy’s laugh is bitter, but it doesn’t stop him from wrapping Vax’s cloak tightly around the pair of them. “Now. Not out here. Not in the cold.” His cock rubs against Vax’s ass and even through the layers of clothing between them Vax can feel how _hot_ he is. “You deserve a bed somewhere. A good bed, one that can stand up to some rough treatment, in a room with a fireplace so I can see your body.” His hips are moving so little that Vax can’t see how he’s getting anything out of it, but when he tries to reach back and help out, Percy pins his wrists together in front of him. “Slow preparation… I’d wager _platinum_ that you’re beautiful when you’re begging.”

“Gods, Percy, how often do you think about this?”

“Enough.” Percy’s still rubbing slowly against him. “Enough to know that the more you begged, the more I’d tease you.” His body may be slow, but his breathing is quickening, becoming uneven. “I’ve spent a lot of time in my life being patient, Vax. How do you think that plays out when it comes to the bedroom?”

For some reason Vax doesn’t flash on the mental image that Percy’s trying to give him, although he _is_ awfully close: instead he can imagine being on his knees, lips stretched wide around the thickness of Percy’s cock as Percy slowly, methodically fucks his mouth. An involuntary cry escapes his throat and the two of them stop moving again. At least this time they’re in a marginally less compromising position.

“Percy, _please_ —”

“Listen to you,” Percy croons right against Vax’s ear. “You’ve already come and you’re begging me anyway. I can only imagine how needy you’d be, how _desperate_ , if you hadn’t.”

“Next time,” Vax gasps. “Next time we’re anywhere near a gods damned bed.”

Percy’s slow movements are interrupted by a sharp hitch of his hips. “ _Really_?”

Vax tugs his hand free and turns in Percy’s arms, groping without his usual finesse at the front of Percy’s trousers. Percy huffs at this interruption to his plan, and then _moans_ when Vax wriggles down and gets Percy’s cock into his mouth.

There’s no more time to worry about whether or not they’re disturbing the others; Vax licks and sucks and swallows and _take_ that _, de Rolo; you won’t need your prissy little handkerchief to clean up_ this _time_. It’s the opposite of slow and methodical and he gives exactly zero fucks.

The campsite is still quiet when he pops back up, giving Percy a kiss generously laden with the taste of his own spend. Percy takes it not only with equanimity but with a return flicker of the tongue that has Vax wondering just how soon they can locate this Vestige and get back to Vasselheim or Whitestone or, frankly, the nearest flat surface with a door he can lock between the two of them and his sister.

They have timed it all well; perhaps two minutes after Percy’s breathing returns to normal, warm against Vax’s lips, Scanlan extricates himself from his blanket and trots off behind a neighboring tree to relieve himself. If he notices how closely together Percy and Vax are pressed, he says nothing. Likewise, when Kashaw awakens and exchanges a few words with them, he keeps his own counsel. It’s not as though they haven’t all felt the chill of night seep into their bones at some time or another; it’s part and parcel of adventuring.

As Scanlan rejoins them Vax hears the cry of a large bird. A few minutes of confusion later the roc has passed over, and sleep settles back over the group, leaving Scanlan to explain to Kash just when and why they were all cows.

Vax ends up with his back pressed to Percy’s chest again and both their cloaks cocooned around the pair of them. Percy’s leg is hooked over both of his, one arm around Vax’s waist, the other tucked under his neck. It may not last for the rest of the night, but it needn’t; there’s the promise of—

“Next time,” Percy murmurs as though drawing the words directly from Vax’s thoughts, kissing the nape of Vax’s neck.

“As soon as we’re done with this stupid tomb,” Vax says back.

Falling asleep in a tree, he feels, has never come easier.


End file.
